Important

“The Punisher” has arrived. The former mayor who handily won May’s election flew to Manila from his southern power base to formally take over from Benigno Aquino III, telling the gathered crowd he’d tackle the “erosion of the people’s trust” in their leaders. The 71-year-old has already courted controversy with thus-far-rhetorical attacks on the press and the Catholic Church, raising concerns from inside and outside the country. He’s also sworn to reinstate the death penalty — and to dump the bodies into Manila Bay.

Big Boss

So long, and thanks for all the garbage fires. Prime Minister David Cameron gave a sad address at his final EU summit yesterday, as fellow European leaders began preparations for a Britain-less Europe. French President François Hollande is saying London’s financial district will no longer be allowed to clear trades denominated in euros. They had been permitted to make such trades, despite not being in the eurozone, but that right will be a Brexit casualty — much to the delight of Frankfurt, which can absorb that trading power.

Market Forces

You can never take their freedom … of movement. After Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, the country’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been exploring a range of options for staying in the bloc despite Brexit, including vetoing the referendum or calling another vote on Scottish independence. EU leaders will meet with her today to discuss Scotland’s future — even as her Scottish National Party makes a bid to officially replace the Labour Party, whose leadership is in disarray, as the political opposition to the ruling Conservatives.

Briefly

Intriguing

They’re beating a path to North America’s door. Colombia and its neighbors are used to migrants passing through in search of opportunities in the United States. But they now fear people with less altruistic goals and more global destinations in mind are filtering through. Officials are growing increasingly wary of folks — some linked to extremists and/or drug cartels — coming from Nepal, India, Pakistan and Syria, using existing migration flows as a means for moving unseen through the region and attracting sympathizers along the way.

New Route

It’s the circle of life. A scientist at the University of Copenhagen calculated in a new study that while we’ve officially logged 1,359 plant and animal extinctions in the past 12,000 years, humans have relocated or domesticated another 1,634 species. Recording the debut and disappearance of lifeforms is far from exact, and there’s no making up for the entire ecosystems humans have ransacked — but the figures shed new light on how our environment constantly reshapes itself around us as we hunt, farm and build cities.

Natural Selection

It’s a race to a cure. A new study found that the virus stayed in non-pregnant monkeys for no more than 10 days, and animals who were re-infected later had developed an immunity. But the fast-spreading virus, which has been linked to severe birth defects in humans, lasted 30-70 days in pregnant monkeys, though researchers still don’t know why. The results could help with developing a Zika vaccine and treatment for pregnant women to prevent fetal abnormalities like microcephaly, which continues to surge in South America.

Going Viral

Careful what you publish. A New York judge tossed the case of three Phi Kappa Psi members who said they were defamed by last year’s retracted Rolling Stone story about campus rape. The judge found the description of a University of Virginia gang rape — fabricated by anonymous source “Jackie” — was too vague to meet the definition of defamation. The magazine is preparing for two more defamation suits, including a $25 million claim from the Virginia Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Psi that goes to trial in October.